It is common knowledge to the medical and nursing profession that patients are frequently traumatized by falls from bed, both in hospitals and nursing homes. While it is not impossible to restrain patients in beds either by tying or by drugs, these methods have deleterious repercussions. These include mental and physical trauma; both producing extreme discomforts.
All to frequently, falls follow confusion and deliberate attempts to leave the bed even by climbing over side-rails. These bed related falls are frequently linked to confusion caused by the unfamiliar hospital or nursing home environment. Currently used beds include safety mechanisms, like side-rails, yet all such devices, including restraints, are not capable of cushioning impact when an individual falls from bed to floor. Thus a need exists for an impact cushioning device attachable to hospital and nursing home beds. Billions of scarce health-care dollars are expended annually to repair fractured hips and the like. Twenty percent of elderly patients who break a hip are dead within 2 months and 50% never walk again.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,172,683 to West 1992 discloses a means whereby a cushioning air-bag is filled with gas stored under pressure in a canister. Using current technology, the expense of this embodiment is prohibitive and thus inappropriate in today's health care fiscal climate.